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When I was at dinner last night, I couldn’t help but notice that everywhere I looked, people were on their phones. At one table, I saw a person talking to someone who was staring at his phone during the whole conversation.

With 24/7 access to email, to Facebook, to Twitter, or to whatever other apps might be your phone, distraction is easy to come by. In a recent study published in the New York Times, 89% of people said they’d used their phones during the last social event they attended.

If it’s this hard to stay focused when you’re out with friends, then a boring business meeting doesn’t stand a chance. And the standard “data dump” presentation definitely isn’t going to cut it.

To keep your audience focused on you and not their phones during your next meeting, you need to make two things happen:

1. Keep your content audience-centered. Your message needs to be relevant to your audience. If your content is centered on you and what you need from them, it’s not going to be heard. Ask yourself, “Am I speaking to what the audience can do for me or what I can do to for my audience?”

2. Build a strong emotional connection with your listeners. People want to feel like they can trust who they’re listening to. They want to feel warmth coming from a speaker. Smile. Use body language. Lighten up your face. All of these strategies are simple ways to warm up your tone and build connection and trust.

If you’re serious about building your skill (and keeping people off their phones during your next presentation), then check out our new book, Communicate to Influence where we lay out step-by-step details for creating audience-centered content and building connection.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: TED Conference Time. As participants in #TED2013 Live, we’ve been privy to this year’s ideas worth spreading. With so many ideas (over 84 different talks in 4 days) – which ones do we remember most? Those that were well-communicated, of course. Fact: … Continue reading →

You’ve heard us say it before, and we’ll say it again: People buy on emotion and justify with fact. There’s no better place to watch emotions unfold than on the Super Bowl, and it’s no surprise to us that the commercials that stood out were the ones that got us … Continue reading →

It’s gotten easy to sit behind a computer and communicate, but we know that in order to influence change, to motivate others, to connect with people — we have to get in front of them. I had the chance to see Gary Vaynerchuk at a book signing this morning (practically at … Continue reading →

Who cares what you have to say? Does your audience? While coaching an executive last week, this issue arose. He felt that his audience didn’t care about the material he was presenting, which in turn impacted the way he was presenting it. It’s a vicious cycle. As communicators, we seek … Continue reading →

Last week I wrote on various aspects of eye communication. A couple of experiences prompt me to write again – on how eye communication impacts word of mouth marketing. And how important is word of mouth marketing? 80% of reviews are positive…because people want to share things they enjoy. Known … Continue reading →

You may have heard of the backchannel when one is speaking, but have you heard of BackNoise? If not, it’s time you do. As blog post reader Paul Freet stated: “Backnoise is like the hammer in the 1984 Apple commercial.” Paul hit the nail on the head. BackNoise is the … Continue reading →

You build relationships through spontaneous, casual, open and ‘dialogue’ communications. This is primarily done in the communications medium of face-to-face and not in text – until Twitter. Twitter is powerful enough to use right now, but will become even more of a relationship builder as people use the ‘group’ function. … Continue reading →

(UPDATE: See this clip from CNN 6/20/09, 4 days after I wrote the following post. They now call it “the Internet Revolution.”) The Iran protests and Twitter’s hand in dramatically showing that an oppressive regime can no longer censor dissent may have changed communications forever. Ahmadinejad’s regime thought they had … Continue reading →

Exploding – the word for Twitter, and Social Media for that matter. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about Twitter, and particularly about getting started, so this post is JUST about that – and will be a little texty. Timely though, since I’m about to speak to a major Association’s Management … Continue reading →

Communicating is a contact sport

How can you better influence others? If you have ideas to pitch, products and services to sell, or a team to lead, communication is key to your success. Our communication training programs walk you through the specific delivery and messaging skills necessary for coming across authentic, credible, and influential.